Classical bitchery

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I found this quite fun - who knew how catty all these great composers could be about each other?

• "He has lovely moments but awful quarters of an hour." - Rossini on Wagner
• "After Rossini dies, who will there be to promote his music?” - Wagner on Rossini
• “A composer for one right hand.” - Wagner on Chopin
• "He composes by splashing his pen over the manuscript and leaving the issue to chance." - Chopin on Berlioz
• “A regular freak, without a vestige of talent.” - Mendelssohn on Berlioz
• “A tub of pork and beer.” - Berlioz on Handel
• “He’d be better off shovelling snow than scribbling on manuscript paper.” - Richard Strauss on Schoenberg
• "He is no longer of any interest to me, and whatever I may have learned from him, I am thankful to say I misunderstood." - Schoenberg on Strauss
• "Such an astounding lack of talent has never before been united to such pretentiousness." - Tchaikovsky on Strauss
• "He can’t compose a single note without someone’s help.” - Tchaikovsky on Borodin
• ""What a giftless bastard! It annoys me that this self-inflated mediocrity is hailed as a genius." - Tchaikovsky on Brahms
• “Hygienic, but unexciting.” - Liszt on Brahms
• “Why is it that whenever I hear a piece of music I don't like, it's always by Villa-Lobos?” - Stravinsky on Villa-Lobos
• "Bach on the wrong notes." - Prokofiev on Stravinsky
• “He wrote marvellous operas but dreadful music.” - Shostakovich on Puccini
• "A man of great talent who lacks the essential quality that makes great masters." - Bizet on Verdi
• "A very tolerable imitation of a composer.” - Vaughan Williams on Mahler
• “If he'd been making shell-cases during the war it might have been better for music.” - Ravel on Saint-Saëns

Miaow!

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Composers in the collage:

First row - Antonio Vivaldi, Johann Sebastian Bach, Georg Friedrich Händel, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Ludwig van Beethoven;
Second row - Gioachino Rossini, Felix Mendelssohn, Frédéric Chopin, Richard Wagner, Giuseppe Verdi;
Third row - Johann Strauss II, Johannes Brahms, Georges Bizet, Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, Antonín Dvořák;
Fourth row - Edvard Grieg, Edward Elgar, Sergei Rachmaninoff, George Gershwin, Aram Khachaturian

Peter and the hep-cats

Groan. Back to working-from-home time is upon us.

To ease our weary carcasses into this delightful situation, I think a little "classical" music is in order.

How about a little Prokofiev..?

Clyde Valley Stompers - Peter and the Wolf

...or a bit of Mozart?

Kenny Ball & His Jazzmen - Rondo

Ah, that's better...

You have dancing shoes with nimble soles

"Nay, gentle Romeo, we must have you dance."

"Not I, believe me. You have dancing shoes
With nimble soles. I have a soul of lead
So stakes me to the ground I cannot move."

"You are a lover. Borrow Cupid’s wings
And soar with them above a common bound."

On this day of all things Shakespearean*, it is a felicitous coincidence indeed that also born on this day was the composer Sergei Prokofiev.

For it was Prokofiev who took inspiration from Will's greatest romantic play Romeo and Juliet to create one of the best ballet scores of the 20th century.

From it comes one of my favourite pieces of classical music, the dramatic and triumphal Dance of the Knights - also known as Montagues and Capulets - here played in its entirety by the London Symphony Orchestra conducted by Valery Gergiev:

London Symphony Orchestra - Dance of the Knights [Prokofiev: Romeo & Juliet]

And if that didn't wake you up, nothing will!

Sergei Prokofiev (23rd April 1891 - 5th March 1953)

[*'tis 400 years since the Bard's death, and traditionally also the date usually marked as his birthday.]

Shakespeare and his boys are the latest "exhibit" in the Dolores Delargo Towers Museum of Camp.